Unjournalism

Chris Brogan asks this morning, “What are your social media tasks?” He asks six specific questions, and rather than leave a monster of a comment on his blog, I’m intentionally fragmenting the conversation (sorry!) and responding in this post.

1) What’s first in your day? What do you do before any other social media task?

First thing is usually to check for Twitter replies. It’s not really the case that this is the most critical, but it’s a quick and easy thing to check first, and Twhirl is usually the quickest app (compared to Outlook and Firefox) to start up in the morning.

2) How do you listen? (example, I use Google Blog Search and Technorati search)

I listen with a huge load of RSS feeds that track Web sites, blogs, Twitter and specific news sites. Also, in a different way, I listen by simply being a part of a particular community. That’s not listening for company/product/client names, but it’s listening to what’s new, what’s hot, what’s important, what’s appropriate, etc.

3) Where do you connect with your communities?

I connect with my communities in various offline places (lunch, coffee shop, office, etc.), but online it’s primarily Twitter and on other people’s blogs. My own blog doesn’t have a huge community, per se — but, for example, Todd Defren and Shel Holtz’s blogs do.

4) How many communities do you visit?

I regularly “visit” two online communities: Twitter and Facebook. “Visiting” those communities is a very different experience, though. Twitter comes to me wherever I am (far better), and Facebook requires me to go there (far worse). Also, while my Facebook crowd reflects one particular community, Twitter really acts as a place to collect activity of so many other communities. It’s a meta-community, or a community community, or whatever post-modernist yuppie phrase you want to use.

For example, I’m not terribly active on Seesmic, but people’s Twitter messages about Seesmic videos occasionally rope me in. There are several people who’s blogs I don’t subscribe to, in an effort to keep my daily reading under control, but I often end up reading individual posts because they’ve started a Twitter discussion.

5) Is your social media use primarily for personal use or business or both?

There is almost no separation between the two. I don’t have a problem with working on the weekends or not spending time with the missus or anything, but there’s little, if any, distinction between Mike of Provident Partners and Mike of the Keliher Clan.

6) What are your goals with using social media?

Honestly, that’s like asking, “What are your goals with waking up the morning?” Seriously. And I don’t say that because I have to “use social media” all day, as soon as I wake up, because it’s my whole life.

I say that because the Web is pervasive in my life, in the best way possible. I’m “on Twitter” for much of the day, and I have many friends there — some, but by no means all, of them I’ve never met in person. I say that because questions in our office rarely go unanswered, thanks to an ignorance-slaying combination of Google and 1,000 Twitter friends. I say that because, even though it doesn’t fit the explanation most people think of when they say “social media,” I think e-mail is one of the biggest social media communication tools we have.

And yes, Chris, I’ll be at the NewComm Forum next week. I hope to have a chance to meet you. I’ll be the guy following Albert Maruggi around with a video camera.

Tags: social media // 2 Comments »

Shannon Whitley pointed me to this post from John Furrier about social media news releases. I started following links within and ended up reading this post from Matthew Ingram, which John was summing up.

Matt’s post was prompted by this one from Mark Glaser, which provides a pretty good history and current state of the union on social media news releases. Another link in this long chain led me to Tom Foremski’s post expressing (legitimate) surprise that putting links in news releases on the Web is still relatively unexplored territory. Seriously, people…

Why did I tell you that? Because after all that reading, I had dozens of eager and angry thoughts flying around in my head. I was about to start writing them down, sharing my thoughts on why this whole “social news release” concept isn’t really all that difficult. Then it hit me.

I already did. Thirteen months ago.

And pretty much every word is still relevant, still being discussed in those posts I linked to above. I could update or add a bit more, but to prove a point, I’ll let my previous post stand as is.

Tags: public relations, social media release // Add Comment »

(A note about the headline to old people who might read this: “FTW” means “for the win.” Think golf: “The Shankman sinks the big putt - for the win!”)

PRNewser provides a brief write-up about Peter Shankman’s “Help a Reporter” Web site, a good-karma-earning project in which the Shankman (doesn’t the “the” make him sound at least three times cooler?) fields requests from reporters looking for people to talk about, well, anything. The Shankman then compiles and shares those requests for resources with a community of somewhere around 1,200 or so (last I heard) public relations folks.

This Web site actually works its magic in one of the oldest forms of “social media”: a massive, e-mail distribution list. Remember those? Came around a few years before RSS and wikis and the like? Yeah?

HelpAReporter.com started as a group on Facebook.

Read those last couple of lines again. As bloggers tend to say when they’re trying to be funny about stuff like this, I’ll wait…

You back? OK. Did you catch it? Facebook, the darling of so many social networking junkies and social media consultants and so many other people who say “social” a lot, drove away a very successful, purposeful group that embodies exactly what social networking is supposed to be. Drove it away to an e-mail distribution list.

Way to go Facebook.

This happened because, as PRNewser mentioned, Facebook puts a limit on the number of Facebookers who can receive direct messages, sort of like an “internal e-mail” unique to the Facebook system. The Shankman’s group quickly outgrew that limit.

I’m sure there’s (probably) a reason for that and other limits, but probably not a very good one, especially if you’re Facebook and you’re trying to take over the Web. Plus, the Shankman really should want to be on Facebook to help his group grow. I know coverage on the NY Times site can help, but so can a link in my Facebook news feed that says, “[Friend’s name] has joined ‘If I can help a reporter out, I will…’” That’s how I learned about it months ago. The power of that spread is not to be underestimated.

On a related subject: The folks who run ProfNet apparently hate Peter Shankman. ProfNet is a service from the PR Newswire that does basically the exact same thing HelpAReporter.com does. Two differences: It looks a little bit prettier and costs thousands of dollars. For kicks, I’ll remind you that the Shankman seeks no money, just good karma.

ProfNet has no ground to stand on. It’s not kosher to take content from ProfNet and share it with thousands of others who aren’t paying for it. But there’s nothing stopping a reporter from submitting a call for help to both ProfNet and ShankmanNet to improve his or her odds of success. Maybe ProfNet will find some other way to succeed in the long run.

Tags: Facebook, social networking // 7 Comments »

I want people to leave SocialTNT alone, and here, I’ll tell you why.

It all started on Saturday when Chris Lynn, a.k.a. SocialTNT, made a comment about how he found coolness in a gay couple and their adopted child and the skin colors of each. It seemed an honest, innocent statement to me, but one Ike Pigott started questioning Chris’ comment.

I’ve met neither Chris nor Ike in person, but I “know” them both somewhat well via the Internets and the wonderful world of Twitter. Chris is here and Ike is here. They both seem like great guys. Certainly smart and worth following.

Anyway, the conversation between Chris and Ike, as Chris worked to explain his views and Ike questioned his motivations, became just a little heated. Not unfriendly or mean, but a bit testy at times.

Finally, Chris said, “Do I need to cry to win your sympathy and seem more human?” (He was kidding, of course, and he wrote it more like Prince, using the number 2 for the word “to” and whatnot.)

Just for fun, I asked Chris how long it would take to upload the video. He took me seriously. Unfortunately, before he put his video together, Chris said that if he did it, he’d want me to re-create that infamous “Leave Britney alone” video for his story.

So I did.

I used the original Britney-fan video as a loose outline, changing the lines to be relevant to Chris Lynn — and to make them funny. Each line in my video is prompted by a little something I know about Chris, like how he does a series of video posts on his blog called “3Qs in the 3min” or how his lesbian roommates moved out AND TOOK THE MICROWAVE!

I’m writing this post for three reasons:

1) To document this story, time capsule-style, for future generations of geeks who will find this as funny as I do.

2) To explain why I did this so I seem a little less demented and to increase the chances other people will think it’s funny.

3) To make sure I don’t piss off Ike. He’s always talking about logic and fallacies and syllogisms and whatnot. I’d hate to get in a argument with him. Seems smart.

Plus, it’s just a joke.

Tags: SocialTNT, Twitter // 3 Comments »

The New York Times wrote about it. The Social Times got me thinking about it again. I must weigh in here on Target’s non-participation policy toward blogs and a couple of related issues. To be clear, I am in no way interested in weighing in on the advertisement in question, the ad that brought this whole unfortunate situation to light. I’m strictly focused on the communication policy issue here and Target’s seemingly short-sighted response to a concerned consumer.

So let’s start right there: Did you notice my word choice - “consumer”? Target saw her as a blogger, someone likely to have “an agenda” but also likely to have too small of “an audience” to warrant a real response from a busy PR team.

The Social Times writes: “…basically Target doesn’t think anyone that goes to Target stores read blogs,” stemming from Target’s now notorious statement saying it doesn’t “participate with nontraditional media.” (Side note: Yes you do!)

In this case, it doesn’t seem to be an issue of “We’re big Target and you’re a little blogger and we’re not interested in whatever little audience you might have (and we’re ignoring the fact that you could incite a nice little blog storm).” To me, this is the important issue: The woman to whom Target sent this unfriendly response (likely a Target shopper or at least a model of Target’s “core guest”) had an issue with a Target ad, so she asked Target about it. And it seems as though Target blew her off because she’s a blogger.

The impression: To get a response from Target, you not only have to be a “core guest” but you also have to prove you’re not a “non-traditional media” outlet. Is that it?

I understand that there is a distinction to be made between the responsibilities of Target’s PR team and Target’s customer service department, but that’s not the consumer’s problem, nor does that distinction matter to the blogger who feels slighted. She’s slighted by Target, regardless of which department bears the blame.

Does every single inquiry a company might receive warrant an immediate, full-force response? No, of course, not. But this request for an explanation seems reasonable. Certainly, it seems to warrant more than a response along the lines of, “Oops! You said the B-word! No comment.”

If this woman had not identified herself as a blogger, it seems reasonable to assume she’d have been transferred from the PR folks to some sort of customer service representative and handled from there (hopefully in a more friendly manner). But in dropping the B-bomb, she was summarily rejected as not relevant to Target’s quest to reach the “core guest.”

Bloggers are people. People are bloggers. Some “core guests” are bloggers, and some “core guests” read blogs.

Photo courtesy of j.reed on Flickr. Thanks.

Tags: Target, blog, public relations // 6 Comments »

Yesterday I saw an item in which the writer, Clarence Westberg, referred to Pownce, the “similar to but not the same as Twitter” microblogging tool, as a “social network.” (Actually, he called Pownce a “worthless social network,” but that’s a separate issue.)

This simple statement got me thinking: What makes a “social network,” in the online sense? And, of course, the related question: Why does this word parsing matter, if at all?

To kick off my thinking on this issue, I informed my Twitter crew:

I’m intrigued by people who refer to things like Twitter as a social network. Is a blog a social network because it has your picture on it?

Sort of a snarky statement, but the responses, which came quick and often, turned me from silly to thoughtful. I had always reserved the label “social network” for those sites that centered on the profile, a quality Facebook, MySpace and many others certainly share. I considered Twitter and Pownce to publishing tools, not networking tools.

In response to my statement, Connie Crosby took the old-school approach, reminding me that social networks are indeed composed of people, not Web sites, but that Web sites — even blogs — can be effective social networking tools if people put an effort toward truly connecting and interacting.

Thu-An Bui also emphasized the idea of interaction. So did Julio Ojeda-Zapata, a technology writer at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and all-around geek (in the best way possible). And so did Clarence. Cece Salomon-Lee did, too, and added an angle about being able to “interconnect [with other people] seamlessly - add, delete, block, follow, etc.“

I think you see the trend developing here.

Social networking is about the people. Sites like Facebook are definitely focused on profile pages and connecting with other people, which led me to my initial, narrower definition of “social network” — something like a fancy, interactive Rolodex. Sites like Twitter, which the people mentioned above solidly regard as a social network, are more focused on communicating, I’d argue, than connecting people, but those two ideas are so closely connected I wonder if the distinction is relevant.

Why does any of this matter? I still wrestle with that. Maybe you can help (see that comment form below?). But one thing I do know: You can do yourself a favor by not getting caught up in your own preconceptions (or in this case, misconceptions). The way people use a Twitter, or a Facebook, or an anything, matters more than the label or even the purpose anyone tries to force upon it.

Tags: Facebook, Pownce, Twitter, semantics, social network // 6 Comments »

Bill Sledzik, associate professor at the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Kent State University, writes a guest post at PR Conversations about social media measurement and ROI.

He doesn’t pretend to have all of the answers, but he does a good job of raising and putting into perspective the all-important question: “How effectively does our work generate leads, drive sales, reduce costs? All are bottom-line outcomes, and often difficult to tie back to PR activity—online or off.”

There’s a good discussion over on Bill’s post, so check it out. I’m using it as a launch pad for this post.

Bill poses the challenge of measuring relationships, as opposed to simply measuring outcomes such as “blog mentions” or “press clips” if you’re nasty. The first step toward successful measurement (perhaps obviously) would be to measure toward your objectives. This is especially true for something as complicated and important as relationship measurement.

Don’t simply “measure the relationship” to come up with something like a Relationship Value Index, for example, that is supposed to show how important a particular person or group is to your organization. Instead, if you’re (at the time) concerned with crisis management, it makes sense to judge the people or publics with whom you’ve developed relationships on, say, their ability to pacify a riotous blogosphere. That would include factors like favorability toward your organization, credibility, reach (quality and quantity), ability to generate other posts in response (influence), frequency of activity beyond the post (conversing in comments), etc.

In a different context — such as a product launch — you could judge those same relationships with more emphasis on reach and influence but perhaps less on credibility and conversation.

This brings to back to the headline: Let’s start somewhere. With all this talk of social media tools, tips and tricks, measurement often draws the short straw. It’s easy to get caught up in the complexity of properly, intelligently implementing strategies that put the power of social media to good use. To make measurement possible, we need to begin these strategies with tangible metrics and objectives in mind, another element of many social media efforts that is often lacking.

Anecdotal, case-study measurement is a good start, but it rarely is based in the mindset of comparing results to objectives stated at the outset. It’s one thing to be able to say you’ve earned your keep, but it’s a whole new world to try to measure, analyze, repeat and improve.

What do we want to accomplish with our “social media efforts”? Why are we social-media-fying our news releases? Why am I helping clients podcast their thoughts and insights? What could I ever stand to gain from Facebook? Can I possibly find a meaningful way to measure relationships and connect them to business objectives?

Or can we just keep blogging because it’s cool?

(For the record, there are plenty of folks far smarter than me on the subject of PR measurement. Katie Paine is one. Part of the reason I’m writing is to “think out loud,” as they say. Also, Geoff Livingston has a good collection of social media case studies; some certainly fall into the anecdotal style of “measurement,” but some are more, well, sophisticated, I guess.)

“Measurement” courtesy of thespacesuitcatalyst via Flickr

Tags: Bill Sledzik, measurement, metrics, social media // 1 Comment »

The past week has brought two great posts on the power of Twitter. At the same time, my love and respect for Twitter and the people within my Twitter universe is growing like never before.

My Twitter consumption habits are continually evolving, and I think I’ve finally hit on something that works pretty well. First step: I follow anyone who seems even remotely interesting or who follows me first. If he or she is entirely uninteresting or completely annoying, I can always “unfollow.”

Until recently, I received all incoming tweets (not direct messages, but everything from anyone I follow) as Google Talk instant messages. There’s no way I’d opt to have every tweet sent to my cell phone as a text message, and instant message style was way more convenient than only interacting with twitter.com.

And I read every single tweet. Seriously. It wasn’t a Scoble-esque following of 6,000 people, but with 60 or so followees (at the time), it was a damn lot to read. People “in my crowd,” like Robert Scoble, BL Ochman, Todd Defren and Jeremiah Owyang, tend to tweet a ton. (Hooray for alliteration!)

Within the past couple of weeks, I’ve shifted course. I now use the desktop app Snitter for reading, writing and interacting with the Twitter world. I’ve also resolved to continue to grow my Twitter crowd, but not for popularity reasons. The way I use Twitter, the more smart, active people, the better. With that resolution, I’ve given up on my commitment to read it all. I now am smart enough to just keep the window open and watch the brilliance, humor, wit, observations, inanity and riff-raff fly by all day long. It’s a wonderful thing.

Part of the power of Twitter is that, among all of these social tools we use to communicate on the Web, this is the one that truly feels social. For me, blogs, podcasts and wikis are only “social” in comparison to, say, newspapers and network television. But with Twitter, I truly feel as though I’ve established some sense of a relationship with certain people.

One of the more insightful folks in my Twitter crowd is Garrick Van Buren, and he hits the nail on the head:

It’s my water cooler. It’s light, small, flexible, and I don’t mind the instability.

(By the way, he’s funny, too.)

What’s the point? I’ve spent a lot of time recently hashing out with colleagues the ins and outs of Twitter, why a person would use this vs. that, what it can and can’t do (technically and professionally), and the like. For me, it always boils down to this: Twitter, like many other things in life, online or off, is what you make of it.

The beauty is that I don’t have to work hard to make a lot of it. I rarely find the time to write meaningful blog posts, and when I finally think I’m going to, I never dig in because the writing I would like to accomplish is daunting. But Twitter’s 140-character limit is the polar opposite; it’s downright inviting. I’m sure my Twitter stream is far more valuable on a regular basis than this blog.

So there’s my brain dump on Twitter. I don’t think it’s what I had in mind when I started writing, but part of my goal was to think through my own usage and habits and see them in a new light. How about you: What are your Twitter habits, and how do they fit into your day?

Tags: Twitter, new media // 2 Comments »

I like to think of myself as a bit of a techie, but I never really paid enough attention to figure out what “rel=nofollow” meant. But today, I learned.

So, following Todd Defren’s lead, I proudly activated the Semiologic DoFollow plugin for WordPress.

What does that mean? As Todd says:

So, now when you include a URL in your comment (associated with your name), it will “count” as a link from PR-Squared [or, in this case, Unjournalism] to your own site, in Technorati, et al.

So join in the fun!  Don’t just lurk!  Sound off & reap the rewards of participation (and linklove).

Now if I could only find time to blog more often. I have a good one about social media news releases burning a whole in my drafts folder…

Tags: blogging // Add Comment »

When was the last time you heard any serious discussion about this blogger’s code of conduct that Tim O’Reilly whipped up this summer? I must admit, I was never a huge fan of the idea. I figure that if a person is of the hate-commenting nature, a code of conduct isn’t really going to slow them down. Same goes for any Web site operator who would let a hate-filled comment go uncheck. You think they’d really implement — let alone follow — a code of righteous and fair conduct?

Of course, the ideas behind the code came from the right place: a desire to clean things up and keep the best parts of the Web just the way we like them. I guess my general aversion with regard to the code of conduct stems from whatever causes my political ideology of a similar nature: an aversion to “big government,” or in this case, a bunch of big-wigs working to implementing any sort of guidelines or suggestions or codes.

Still, who the hell am I? Let’s continue to have the discussion. If a decent amount of people think this code of conduct is a good idea, I’m open to hearing about it. So where’s the discussion? Most of the recent posts I’ve seen about this issue are junk posts. There are some good ones, but the serious discussion about this issue — once considered to be quite serious — has died down. Does that reflect the true bigness (or smallness) of the matter?

Tags: blogging, code of conduct // Add Comment »